(For more stories on Pakistan and Afghanistan, click on [nAFPAK]) (Updates with arrest of suspects in Punjab) KARACHI, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Pakistani police have arrested seven men belonging to an al Qaeda-linked militant group who were planning to attack high profile targets in the country's biggest city, Karachi. The militants, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) group, were arrested in a raid in the upmarket Defence neighbourhood where they had rented a bungalow, Superintendent of Police Fayyaz Khan told Reuters late on Sunday. "All of these militants belong to the LeJ and they were planning to attack important government buildings and senior government officials," Khan said. "We have recovered three suicide jackets, four AK-47 rifles, four pistols and 15 kg (33 lb) of explosives," he said. Pakistan, a nuclear-armed U.S. ally, has seen an intensification of attacks by Islamist militants over the past two years. It has responded since April with army offensives against militant strongholds in the northwest. Karachi is Pakistan's commercial hub and home to its main stock exchange and central bank. Many foreign companies involved in Pakistan also have offices there. Khan said one of the detained men, Muhammad Shahzad, had also been involved in planning an attack on former president Pervez Musharraf and another attack on former prime minister Shaukat Aziz. The Sunni Muslim LeJ is one of Pakistan's most notorious al Qaeda-linked groups that began by targeting minority Shi'ite Muslims. It later graduated to more audacious attacks, such as the truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in September last year in which 55 people were killed, the government says. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told CNN on Sunday that security forces had in the past month foiled a militant attack on parliament in Islamabad. And police in the eastern province of Punjab said they had foiled a plot to launch a series of suicide attacks by Taliban militants on foreign targets and minority Shi'ite Muslims. "We have arrested six would-be suicide bombers and their handler. They had links with Baitullah Mehsud's group," senior police officer Usman Anwar said referring to the Pakistani Taliban chief who is believed to have been killed in a U.S. missile strike on Aug. 5. The militants planned to target offices and installations of the Norwegian telecommunication company Telenor, Anwar said. Police were conducting raids to search for more members of the network, he said. (Reporting by Imtiaz Shah and Asim Tanveer; Writing by Faisal Aziz; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Pakistan Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud (L) is seen with his arm around Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud during a news conference in South Waziristan in this May 24, 2008 file photo. The ...
